On Mar 7, 2010, at 1:15 PM, Phil Brown wrote:
On Mar 6, 9:41 am, Tim McNamara <tim...@bitstream.net> wrote:
On Mar 6, 2010, at 10:22 AM, bfd wrote:
I know many here will disagree with me, but I'm tired of Grant's
constant carbon bashing. What he doesn't mention is that carbon
frames
can be repaired. Craig Calfee repairs carbon fiber frames and does a
fantastic job.
Unfortunately many carbon repairs fall into the scenario of shutting
the barn doors after the horse is gone. Since the first inkling of a
carbon failure is often catastrophic, your frame or fork might be
repairable but you may be preoccupied with recovering from your
injuries when your steerer tube snapped or the head tube parted
company with the rest of the frame.
E.g.,http://www.bustedcarbon.com/
Steel just does not fail in this manner unless you ignore obvious
warning signs for a very long time. You could run over a steel bike
wiith a cement mixer and it would fare better than many of the items
on that blog have fared in pretty normal accidents. Grant's pointing
out the problems with carbon doesn't strike me as desperate, it
strikes me as concerned about people's safety.
Well, I don't mean to play devil's advocate-actually, I do, Tim, but
when was the last time any of us actually did a pre-ride inspection
similar to a pre-flight walk around a pilot of a light aircraft does?
Have we checked for cracks, damage or other indicator of ill health in
our bikes? I haven't recently and I'll bet many of us are as
delinquent.
By no means do I do this before every ride, but I do whenever I clean
up my bikes which is every couple of weeks. Back when I owned a
Viscount Aerospace Pro (not that any pros actually rode them),
several items on that bike broke. The first was the stem, which
cracked where the expander plug pressed against the quill. Then the
frame cracked at the seat tube above the bottom bracket. And finally
the left side of the BB axle snapped when I stood up to take off from
a stop sign, dumping me onto the street instantly. Had there been a
motor vehicle coming up on my left it could have been bad news.
Oddly enough I rode the "death fork" for 8 years without a problem-
go figure. I did see one rider whose Viscount fork failed; he
escaped with half of his face covered in road rash. Nasty looking.
Since I ride my bikes pretty regularly I am sensitive to "that
doesn't sound/feel/look right" as many of us are. The materials I
choose for my bikes generally will give some advance warning before
failure. I try to eschew materials that don't. Aluminum alloys fall
in between and are worth inspecting, especially cranks at the pedal
eye, handlebars/stems and rim braking surfaces. Over the years I
have found cracked frame tubes, a cracked stem, cracked rims, etc.
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